Carousell’s fraud rate hits record 67% drop in 2020

Classifieds marketplace Carousell announced it has achieved a 67% decline in fraud rate across 2020, its lowest-ever fraud rate to date.

Carousell co-founders (from left) Quek Siu Rui, Marcus Tan, and Lucas Ngoo / Photo credit: Carousell

The Singapore-based firm’s fraud rate dipped to 0.026% in the fourth quarter of 2020, which means that only about two to three in every 10,000 transactions on its marketplace were fraudulent.

The company attributed the drop to significant investments in the marketplace and close collaboration with the Singapore authorities.

“Achieving a new low for fraud rate is definitely a milestone for our team, but we know that combating fraud is like an arms race. We are constantly innovating to stay ahead of the curve and to keep one step ahead of opportunistic scammers, who evolve almost as quickly as we do,” said Su Lin Tan, vice president of operations at Carousell.

Carousell is also in the midst of tightening its account creation process to curb fraudulent activities. It is currently limiting each user to only one account, with users requesting for an additional business account being reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The exercise is targeted to conclude by Q1 2021. So far, over 50,000 accounts have been deactivated over the past year.

See also: Unpacking Carousell’s 2019 financial numbers

The firm has doubled the size of its content moderating team to ensure speed of manual moderation on the platform. This has led to 70% of user reports being manually reviewed under an hour in Q4.

Carousell has also employed a mix of artificial intelligence and digital fingerprinting technology to prevent bad actors from returning to the platform through other means.